Australia could soon be at the forefront of alternatives to animal testing

Ed Brackenreg’s biomedical start-up Codex Research has set itself an ambitious target.

“Our goal is to achieve a future one day, at some point, where no-one will bother with any animal experiments anymore,” he says.

As testimony through the New South Wales government’s parliamentary inquiry into the use of primates and other animals in medical research has shown, a world without animal testing is an attractive notion.

Breeding animals for medical research is time-consuming, expensive, and as Mr Brackenreg argues, increasingly irrelevant.

“Ninety-two per cent of drug trials that succeed in mice fail in humans,” he said.

Ethics committees must also be persuaded that a project adequately adheres to the “three Rs” of animal testing: reducing the number of animals used where possible, considering non-animal replacements, and refining the experiments to minimise suffering.

But as virologist Tony Cunningham from the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences told the Inquiry in June, it’s an option the scientific community cannot yet let go.

“We have not nearly reached the point where we can eliminate all animals,” he said.

“For the time being — and as far as we can see — animal models will be essential for advancing medical research.”